'Yes, I was wearing pants': Dad talks about being interrupted by kids on live TV

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March 14, 2017 / 8:26 PM GMT / Source: TODAY

By Scott Stump

The professor who tried to shoo his children away during a BBC interview gone hilariously awry thought the same thing as everyone else once he watched the video.

"It was a mixture of sort of surprise and embarrassment and amusement," Robert Kelly told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. "It was terribly cute. I saw the video just like everyone else, and it is really funny."

Kelly, who is originally from the Cleveland area, also shot down the theory that he didn't get up from his desk to grab his children because he was wearing only pajama pants or underwear during the interview.

"Yes, I was wearing pants,'' he joked in a follow-up interview with the BBC on Tuesday (in fact, he was wearing jeans, according to the Journal).

Kelly and his wife, Kim Jung-A, have spoken for the first time since the clip of Kelly's interview went viral as millions delighted in the scene of his daughter, Marion, 4, and 8-month-old son, James, barging into the room.

However, he forgot to lock the door to his office. Seriousness soon went out the window as kiddie chaos reigned.

Kelly tried to keep a straight face as Marion — whom he described as being in "a hippity-hoppity mood" after celebrating her birthday earlier that day at kindergarten — jauntily walked into the room after watching the beginning of the interview on the family's television at the other end of the hall. Hot on her heels was James in his baby walker.

Kim, who had been watching a delayed TV feed, didn't notice the children enter the room for a few seconds. She then slid into the room, crouching low in a futile attempt to avoid being on camera, and did her best to scoop up the children and make a quick exit.

"He usually locks the door," Kim told The Wall Street Journal. "Most of the time they come back to me after they find the locked door. But they didn't. And when I saw the door was open. It was chaos for me."

In addition, the family dealt with the negativity of some online commenters assuming Kim was the children's nanny and not Kelly's wife.

"I just hope people enjoy it and not argue over this thing,'' Kim told the BBC.

After initially being mortified by the video, Kelly gave permission to the BBC to post the clip on social media.

"Everybody we know seems to think it's pretty hysterical,'' he told the BBC. "We understand why people find it enjoyable, catching a regular family off guard. It's funny, we understand that. We were worried that the BBC would never call us again."